Corporate Language Policies – What Are They

G. R. Sanden

Abstract— This paper offers a review of literature dealing with language policies in general and corporate language policies in particular. Based on a discussion of various definitions of these concepts within two research traditions, i.e. sociolinguistics and international management, a three-level definition of corporate language policies is presented, emphasising that a corporate language policy is a context-specific policy about language use. The three-level definition is based on the argument that in order to acquire a complete understanding of what corporate language policies involve, one needs to consider three progressive questions; 1) what is a policy? 2) what is a language policy?, and ultimately, 3) what is a corporate language policy?